Watch the Episode: Mastering System Integration: Challenges and Solutions
In this episode of the PcVue Podcast, host Jim Huysentruyt sits down with Chris McKissack, CEO of Fullmark Energyhttps://fullmarkenergy.com/partners, for a compelling conversation about the fast-moving world of energy technology and battery storage. From the frontlines of innovation, Chris shares his unique journey—from electrical engineer to energy industry leader—and offers a behind-the-scenes look at how AI, data analytics, and cutting-edge storage solutions are reshaping the energy landscape. 🚀 Whether it’s managing grid stability or unlocking the full potential of renewable resources, this episode is packed with expert insights on how companies like Fullmark Energy are navigating the energy transition, managing complex risks, and driving smart, sustainable growth.
Key topics covered in this episode:
- The evolution of battery storage and its game-changing role in the energy market
- Balancing modern grid dynamics and delivering reliable power
- How AI is revolutionizing demand forecasting and energy management
- The power of data analytics in optimizing storage and generation assets
- Fullmark Energy’s playbook for risk mitigation and smart energy strategy
- Navigating the renewable energy shift with innovation and insight
- Leveraging tech for long-term business growth in a rapidly changing sector
If you’re passionate about the future of energy, fascinated by AI-powered solutions, or eager to learn how industry leaders are tackling real-world challenges, this episode is a must-listen.
Other podcasts
- Podcast – P1 | Mastering MES, SCADA & Change Management in Industry with Catherine Bouchard
- Podcast – P2 | Smart Manufacturing, AI and the Future of Industrial Simulation with Andrew Siprelle
- Podcast P3 | Mastering System Integration: Challenges and Solutions with Leo Gravé
- Podcast – P4 | Navigating the Energy Transition with Chris McKissack
Transcript
Chris McKissack (00:33.032) Yeah, Jim, thanks for having me. It’s good to chat today. So yeah, like you said, my name is Chris McKissick. I’m the CEO of Fullmark Energy. My background really starts in a very technical way. I started my career as an electrical engineer for the local utility here in Chicagoland. We’re a Chicago-based company, so it was easy to start here in Chicago working for the utility.
Chris McKissack (00:57.384) protection and control, construction management, those kinds of things for new capital projects out in the field in substation and transmission distribution projects. Eventually then moved over to spending some time working for GE where we were a turnkey provider of substations and transmission and distribution equipment to utilities and IPPs. And that’s where I really first got a little bit of exposure to the development space and to energy transition projects. Kind of caught my eye.
Chris McKissack (01:27.868) Did my MBA at University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. And after finishing that and finishing my time at GE, I jumped over to a company called Lincoln Renewable Energy, which was really the first time I participated in the development space. We started out as a developer of solar projects, evolved into developing wind farms as well.
Chris McKissack (01:49.417) Spent quite a bit of time growing that business as I call myself as almost a technical liaison for a lot of parts of the business from just construction management operations. Got to do a little bit of commercial negotiating offtake agreement for large projects and negotiations for some project sales doing running a bit of development for some time. And then energy storage caught my eye while I was at Lincoln. In about 2014.
Jim Huysentruyt (02:15.511) And about what year
Jim Huysentruyt (02:16.215) are we talking about?
Chris McKissack (02:17.434) that was about 2012 or so, 2011, 2012, right when there were some FERC orders that really opened up the opportunity set for energy storage to participate in energy markets. It was extraordinarily early at that point in time and really too nascent to put some real capital behind. then
Chris McKissack (02:39.528) around 2014 is when I moved over to a company called GlidePath where our focus was on the development of energy storage projects. There we were able to develop some of the earliest battery storage projects that were built and financed here in the United States. Really creative in how we were able to do that on what was then a very large scale of 20 megawatt projects connecting to the distribution system, connected to the wholesale market. It was a lot of fun.
Chris McKissack (03:07.656) helped grow that business and ultimately became the CEO of that business in 2020. We had expanded into wind and solar as well, but our really core competency was battery storage. Ran that business for a number of years and then about the middle of last year in 2024, came over to join Fullmark Energy as a CEO. And, you know, it’s been a great experience here. This is a company that is
Chris McKissack (03:35.997) focused exclusively on the development, ownership and operations of battery storage projects, primarily in front of the meter projects in wholesale markets like Kiso or cotton PJM. But, you know, it’s a great group. It’s been around since 2018. And one of more fun things that we’ve been able to do is actually transition from a pure development organization to a developer owner operator.
Chris McKissack (04:05.768) of small IPP in the space. And it’s been fun to be part of that journey.
Jim Huysentruyt (04:12.525) I mean, it’s just talking about battery storage and how battery storage has really has moved. mean, just in the last, because really you’re talking about in the last 10 years, because it’s really, I mean, if we go before that even so, but in the last 10 years, maybe you kind of talk a little bit about the technology and really what’s going on in the battery storage space.
Chris McKissack (04:37.542) Yeah, mean, the changes are makes what we were doing back in 2012 to 2014 unrecognizable. I mean, there was a point in time where we were talking about LTO and NMC, which are the chemistries, the batteries being.
Jim Huysentruyt (04:53.473) No, no, for our
Jim Huysentruyt (04:55.078) audience, you say LTO and MNC, can you explain just a little bit more?
Chris McKissack (04:59.336) Yeah,
Chris McKissack (05:01.696) really lithium titanate and nickel cadmium batteries were, I would say, the predominant technology about 10 years ago, or at least the ones that people thought were going to be deployed. And the energy, I would say the lack of energy density compared to where we’re at today, the market has really shifted to LFP or lithium iron phosphate.
Chris McKissack (05:28.178) chemistry is now is a predominant predominantly deployed battery storage chemistry. And the shift in energy density, the amount of megawatts and megawatt hours that you can put on a site has just blown me away compared to where were. We were looking at sites that were maybe 20 megawatts per acre.
Chris McKissack (05:54.153) and 20 megawatt hours per acre, give or take about 10 years ago. And now you can fit about a hundred megawatt hours per acre. is just, you know, exponential, the amount of energy density change that has occurred and how much more, you know, more batteries or more energy you can fit on a site has allowed the developers and
Chris McKissack (06:20.688) or as an operator like us to be a little bit more nimble in how and where we deploy the systems. It’s also driven down the cost curve quite a bit. When you’ve got less containers, you’ve got less batteries, you’ve got less wires, the whole ecosystem of capital deployment is driven by energy density.
Jim Huysentruyt (06:40.981) Right. So when we were talking about the batteries and you know, maybe we could talk a little bit about the other side. I mean, you basically have all this. What about the power load and what’s going on with the grid and how much more requirement there is? mean, the need for it.
Chris McKissack (06:59.996) Yeah, and I think one of the best analogies I had heard is when you think about the evolution of the power grid was that way back when the grid really started to come about, you had uncontrollable demand and you had controllable generation. If you picture just an operator sitting at a desk of a power plant, this is a
Chris McKissack (07:23.726) an extreme oversimplification, but could basically dial up and down the generator to meet how much load, how much generation is being put onto the grid, right? And really, really fundamentally here, the amount of generation has to match the amount of load, otherwise frequency deviates and things start to break down. So matching load to demand or load to generation is critical to keeping the lights on. Over the course of time now, you’ve got
Chris McKissack (07:52.945) you still can’t control the demand. You don’t know when people are going to turn on their air conditioners or their heat pumps or when a factory is going to ramp up and ramp down their line. And so you still have uncontrollable demand, but now you introduce wind and solar and more complex generation to the grid and you’ve got uncontrollable generation. Right. And so it has become very hard for the grid operators to maintain that consistent balancing between
Chris McKissack (08:22.328) load and generation and battery storage is just a perfect solution for that problem, right? It responds faster than any other type of generation. It can go up or down, right? If you’ve got an 80 megawatt project, you can go up 80 megawatts, you can go down 80 megawatts, right? And so it gives you that 160 megawatts of range for the good operators to play with and
Chris McKissack (08:46.738) You know, people are no longer really sitting there with their hand on a dial. They use economic signals to, to really control the match between generation and load. it’s, the change in the, the grid and the way the grid operates is, is, has been a lot to me. It’s a hundred plus years in, in, you know, in timeline here, but, things are now changing faster than they ever have. So you’ve got now.
Chris McKissack (09:13.576) Demand response programs, you’ve got residential consumers being aware of energy prices and being able to control their own air conditioners and their own loads in their houses to be able to manage pricing and manage demand on the grid. You’ve got electric vehicles getting plugged in. You’ve got projections of exponential growth and load based on data centers coming online. You’ve got reshoring of
Chris McKissack (09:42.03) manufacturing. There’s really a lot going on that is changing the demands on the grid these days.
Jim Huysentruyt (09:49.261) Yeah, no, let’s learn and talk about the data centers and what energy data centers are bringing, right? So it’s just, it is pretty.
Jim Huysentruyt (09:59.054) I mean, it’s pretty enormous with what’s happening. this, I think this is a good transition because this is where we come in as far as the SCADA side is talking about the data because everything you’re talking about, there’s a lot of data. So maybe you could talk about, maybe talk about the data in general and then talk about how do we get that data and what do you do with it? Those kinds of things.
Chris McKissack (10:21.288) Yeah, and that’s, again, where a difference between battery storage as a generator versus gas or wind or solar as a generator is that it really comes down to the amount of control we have over our asset. That’s great to say and easy to say that we can control it and you have all this flexibility. But how do you make the decisions on what to do with your facility comes down to the data, right? For us,
Chris McKissack (10:48.604) The importance of data is as fundamental as that you’ve got power market data, right? We can, if you think about the power markets and the way the economics of power markets work, as we see it is you can buy or sell power from a battery, right? You can load your charger discharge, you buy or sell power in what’s called the day ahead market. So you can do that the day before.
Chris McKissack (11:12.782) in schedule it ahead. You can do buy and sell power in your energy in the real time market, right? In any given moment, and you can participate in what are called ancillary service markets, which are frequency regulation up and down, spinning, there’s all these different ancillary service market. And so you’ve got, you know, six or seven or eight different choices on what you could do with your battery in any given moment in a different time scale. And so for us, it’s important to be able to accurately
Chris McKissack (11:42.409) predict what those prices will be so that we can choose what section of the market we’re going to participate in for any slice of the day. But then you also have to understand, you have to be able to respond to the market signals. You have to be able to control your battery and make sure that your battery actually responds to the products that you’ve sold into the market.
Chris McKissack (12:08.136) there are just natural physical bounds to it. You can’t overcharge your battery. can’t under, you know, discharge it below your lower thresholds. You can’t overheat your battery. You can’t overwork your inverters. And, you know, not only are these automatic safety systems built into the battery, but, you you also need to know that it’s a finite machine. And so the more cycling you do at different pace, you know, at different speeds,
Chris McKissack (12:38.374) You put more or less wear and tear on the battery. And so we’ve got a lot of operational data that needs to be put together and used in our decisions on what we do with our battery every day.
Jim Huysentruyt (12:51.629) Right. really first bringing in that data and how do you bring in that data? is the, mean, as far as where do you put it? And then really as far as taking that data, so really maybe you could talk about what kind of data systems do you have? How much do you use with SCADA versus databases? Maybe talk about a little bit on the technical side and then
Jim Huysentruyt (13:21.397) understanding what you could do with that data, like degradation and things like that.
Chris McKissack (13:25.99) Yeah, and it really is sort of different answers for different pieces of it, right? Our skated data is really useful for real-time operations and troubleshooting, diagnostics, being able to kind of see, really visualize what’s going on in the site. Collecting more minute data really goes into cloud servers where, you know, you can’t
Chris McKissack (13:54.121) process and save all that data and an onsite server, a server here in the office, right? And you use that for predictive analytics, use that to, we have a dispatch optimization tool that we refer to as Medea. That tool gets trained on all that data to make sure that we can see how.
Chris McKissack (14:16.84) quickly or slowly the battery system is degrading, right? And so you’ve built in some of these machine learning algorithms so that you can better optimize your system every day. And so we’ve got really our, I would say our operational data, you’ve got your skated data, you’ve got your market data comes from the markets and works with our scheduling entities. And so we’ve got.
Chris McKissack (14:41.03) historical data on pricing signals and we use that to again train media to make sure that it’s continuing to optimize on historical information and how the system operates and how the grid operates under different conditions. On top of that, we’ve got data coming in from outside sources like weather forecasts and load forecasts and outage forecasts and so stuff like that that is data that we don’t necessarily control but we use in our
Chris McKissack (15:09.402) and our decision making for the sites.
Jim Huysentruyt (15:11.821) Right.
Jim Huysentruyt (15:12.141) Help your predictability of what, what today and tomorrow is going to look like. Right. You know, as far as that goes. Okay. So as far as that, and then, um, you know, what you were talking about, you know, you’re buying and selling power you’re, you’re doing. So you’re, you’re talking to these outside systems also.
Chris McKissack (15:16.924) Yep.
Chris McKissack (15:30.47) Yeah, we’ve got a lot of interfaces with our scheduling coordinators who are the ones that are tied to the market, right? There’s a lot of cybersecurity and hardening requirements on connecting to places like KISO and ERCOT. But we need to share data with them so that they can pass that through. We’ve got real-time operations.
Chris McKissack (15:55.203) signal processing that occurs between the market and also that the market can dispatch us up or down and those real-time signals need to be passed right through directly to the site. And then there are other things that really we’ve got to have controls on that allow only certain personnel to be able to dial in and work through things like firewalls and stuff to get the operational data or to do troubleshooting or reset equipment remotely and those kind of things. So we’ve got
Jim Huysentruyt (16:20.301) business.
Chris McKissack (16:23.974) layers of protection in operating the facility or getting access to any of operational information.
Jim Huysentruyt (16:31.501)
Jim Huysentruyt (16:33.242) Yeah, because cybersecurity is very important and meeting all the standards, which I know you guys do as far as that goes. And I’m sure you have a group that just focuses on your cybersecurity side and that’s what they do. So really, talking about a lot of these, mean, we have this data.
Jim Huysentruyt (16:59.871) Now you have this data and as far as bringing it in, now talking about some things like AI and what you’re doing with AI. And really maybe not with what you’re doing, just what your thoughts are with where we’re going. obviously AI is probably the biggest subject that people are focusing on right now.
Chris McKissack (17:18.972) Yeah, and it’s really fascinating to see the confluence of something so modern and progressive with the interface with power generation and the power grid, is, know, century plus old, right? don’t, when you think of innovation, you don’t really think of the power grid and utilities, right? That’s just not, you know, they’re…
Chris McKissack (17:45.353) Effectively monopolistic for a reason and that’s because their goal is to keep the lights on and keep people safe, right? And so you see these worlds overlapping and you see really what’s interesting that’s happening is that the world is adopting AI as a tool for processing information. Across the board across all industries. What that’s doing is really driving up demand beyond what the grid can handle and and.
Chris McKissack (18:13.544) more more data centers and AI processing centers need to be built and at a pace that the utilities are just not used to building new infrastructure out. I’m aware of utility projects that have been 10 or 12 years in the planning, right? These are inherently slow moving, large infrastructure investments that take decades of planning and construction to actually build anything out.
Chris McKissack (18:42.266) And you’ve got developers at data centers and AI progressing at a speed that they want, you know, they want to build a massive load and connect it to the grid and lessen. Yeah, they want it tomorrow. It’s it’s it is. And then as I think about how we enable and how users of the grid are enabling those tools, right? I think there’s a, there’s a careful consideration to what information, how we use AI.
Jim Huysentruyt (18:49.757) it’s it’s tomorrow if they want it tomorrow right it’s crazy it’s crazy
Chris McKissack (19:12.252) you know, just in the matter of fact that we’re still cautious and conscientious about adopting tools that, you know, will train on our proprietary information and be used for others to do, you know, do we have to be protective of that? Do we, you know, how do we empower and enable these tools that are very helpful, but do it in a way that’s respectful of the fact that we are part of the national infrastructure.
Chris McKissack (19:42.397) You know, we’re in the power plant business. It’s kind of a mantra that I use here and we’ve got to be mindful of that. That as much as there are great data solutions and software packages and things for operating battery, battery projects, it’s not a video game. It is a piece of infrastructure that is meant to keep the lights on. So, you know, we definitely approach it with a, I would say the right amount of conscientiousness.
Jim Huysentruyt (20:04.141) Mm-hmm.
Jim Huysentruyt (20:11.361) Yep. I like it. It’s not a video game. And again, I think a lot of us have played with AI, right? You play with AI and it’s almost like a video game. Okay. So I like the analogy, but you know, but with that said, let’s say at Fullmark Energy, how are you embracing it on the data side? And what do you, what do you get? I mean, what’s your journey there?
Chris McKissack (20:36.156) Yeah, would
Chris McKissack (20:36.606) say it’s, again, I would say a thoughtful journey. I talk about our media algorithm that’s used for dispatch optimization and is trained on our real world experience in cycling batteries and trains using different technologies and understanding the differences in real time round trip efficiencies and response times and those kind of things.
Jim Huysentruyt (20:51.533) Okay.
Chris McKissack (21:00.422) I’d say we have a tendency to lean more towards machine learning at this point than adoption of AI in-house. But there are lot of folks out there that are offering AI-trained algorithms that claim to be better than the rest. for us, we need to review that and carefully assess whether it really is better. And better means a lot, different things to different people.
Jim Huysentruyt (21:26.829) Right. And then I think also that I like to use the word checks and balances, right? With AI, because you have a lot coming at you, but you do have to check it. really just kind of going through, get a lot of, you know, the AI ghosting and AI, you know, when they can’t figure it out, it almost was like, well, I’m going to figure it out anyways. And being able to, you know.
Chris McKissack (21:51.433) Yeah, I’d
Chris McKissack (21:53.133) seen some early models where, again, doing things like dispatch optimization where the AI model will tell you to chase every $2 arbitrage opportunity. And so if you’re going to chase every small arbitrage opportunity, you are going to cycle your system a lot. And so without a proper feedback loop,
Jim Huysentruyt (22:04.941) Yeah, yeah.
Jim Huysentruyt (22:15.159) Yeah.
Chris McKissack (22:18.738) built in to understand really the impact of cycling on the degradation, the wear and tear on your unit. You’ll just bang up the storage, the batteries in a way that is going to shorten their life and change your investment profile versus the way we like to think about it, which is to take a full cost of a cycle into consideration for what opportunities.
Chris McKissack (22:46.204) we pursue in our bidding strategy. And I think that really does require, again, not just sort of letting an AI tool run with it, but having an optimization tool and the right humans tied to it and making sure that we’re making appropriate decisions that take into consideration the real world.
Jim Huysentruyt (23:10.103) Yep. Okay. So.
Jim Huysentruyt (23:15.149) You know, just kind of taking things along as far as the market space and where we are, where do you see us going? as far as the battery storage and energy in general, you know, five years, 10 years, 20 years.
Chris McKissack (23:27.496)
Chris McKissack (23:29.698) Yeah, I mean, I think battery storage is here to stay. It’s amazing to see the leaps and bounds that the technology has made and the rules continue to evolve to keep up with the changing demand on the grid and the changing evolution technology that connects to the grid. But in any view of the world of what’s going to change,
Chris McKissack (23:55.561) I think battery storage is really the right solution for that change. I remind people that whether we purposely chose this or not, we are in the business of volatility. And whether that’s volatility in power prices hour to hour, minute to minute, or volatility in the topology of the grid, that is our bread and butter. Some of the states and some of the regulators are forecasting
Chris McKissack (24:25.192) demand growth on the system that is faster growth and demand than we’ve seen in decades. And I mentioned before the speed and pace of utilities, they just can’t shift that to pick up that demand fast enough. And what is needed is people that can…
Chris McKissack (24:48.648) deploy capital into infrastructure investment in battery storage like Fullmark Energy. And to be there and developing projects where the demand is growing and where the strains are on the system, we are also a reliability tool. And the more that the RTOs, ISOs and utilities see that, the more battery storage is going to get deployed over the coming decades, to be honest.
Jim Huysentruyt (25:18.337) Very good. Very good. Very good. Yeah, I should say that, you know, talking about technologies, talking about where you guys are, you know, as far as, you and where we are now with the space. I mean, it’s, I think, Fullmark Energy is very impressive with what you’re doing. I mean, right now, how many states are you in?
Chris McKissack (25:44.025) We’ve got operating projects in one state right now, but development projects in about six or seven additional states and four more markets. So, you know, we continue to expand our footprint. We’ve got plans to deploy permanent capital and additional markets later this year. And so, you know, we’re in the volatility business, but we’re really also in the risk management business. And the approach that I like to take with this business is
Jim Huysentruyt (25:50.157) Yeah, I can.
Chris McKissack (26:11.676) sort of a portfolio risk management approach that as much as things are always changing, it’s really nice to have investments across a different, a varying set of investments so that you can manage those risks at the company level and not necessarily always at a project level.
Jim Huysentruyt (26:32.909) That makes a lot of sense. makes a lot of sense. great. think we’ve covered quite a bit. Is there anything else you’d like to add?
Chris McKissack (26:41.636) No, I think it’s really great to see you all focusing on SCADA and data and the analytics here. It’s really important. I can’t drive home enough how important it is to understand the interplay between the hard technology, the actual batteries and inverters and PCSs that are out there, the grid requirements.
Chris McKissack (27:06.022) You’ve got layers of software at the site. You’ve got the BMS, EMS, power plant controllers, and to be able to efficiently manage the data, the controls, the inevitable troubleshooting in response to issues that arise. And really in our space, it’s the predictive analytics and being able to forecast problems before they arise and to…
Chris McKissack (27:32.614) control downtime and manage with preventative maintenance your sites. That’s really key to being a successful operator.
Jim Huysentruyt (27:43.949) Very good. Very good. Well, thank you very much for being here. Hope to talk to you soon. And that concludes our podcast today. Thank you.
Chris McKissack (27:50.472) Great. Thanks for having me, Jim.
